Giroux says speculation he will be Flyers captain is premature

VOORHEES — Signifying a fresh start, Flyers captain-in-training Claude Giroux showed up at the Skate Zone Tuesday wearing a fresh look. No spring beard, hardly any winter whiskers, not so much as a fall fuzz.

To match, the nearly clean-shaven Giroux had chopped his usual mop of tangled ginger hair to summer standards. This is a guy who seems ready for a change.

“It was too long,” Giroux said ... about his hair, but perhaps also about his hockey layoff. “Hopefully, it’s going to grow back soon, though.”

Giroux has been home healing both from the fallout of the NHL’s latest nasty labor war and a neck injury he suffered while playing in Germany with teammate Danny Briere. Both Flyers were nicked up in action over there, but both were trimmed and almost ready to go along with several other regulars by Tuesday, anxiously anticipating the long overdue start to the season, which likely will be Jan. 19 in a nationally televised afternoon game against the Pittsburgh Penguins at Wells Fargo Center.

“There’s not a better opponent we want to play,” Giroux said, “to kick off the season.”

To the Flyers, the Penguins represented a high point of last season, a first-round playoff victory in six games. That series, in many eyes, had been clinched by Giroux.

Not so much for his usual skillful ice maneuvers, but for the smashing hit with which he leveled Sidney Crosby at the start of that sixth game. You know, the kind of thing a captain would do?

“I don’t look at it like that at all,” Giroux said. “I wanted to have a good start and that just happened.”

But when that question of a captaincy again popped up, Giroux laughed and said, “Can we change the subject here?”

Just as the Flyers’ brass isn’t allowed to mix business with the players until the NHL and its players union have composed, re-worked, hammered out, ratified and sealed a new CBA, Giroux isn’t allowed to think of himself as a team captain.

Not until general manager Paul Holmgren and head coach Peter Laviolette officially dub him with the captain’s crown, anyway.

That’s another bit of business, both Holmgren and Laviolette say, that won’t be conducted until after the start of a week-long training camp that could begin Saturday.

“Every step for him has been a step in the right direction,” Laviolette said of Giroux. “As an elite player and tremendous player for our club, it’s been fun to watch with Claude. He certainly has established himself as a terrific leader in our locker room.”

That’s as much of a ringing endorsement hint as you could expect from Laviolette. But Giroux, while turning himself into one of the best two-way forwards in the league, has become the obvious choice as top leader of a young Flyers team tempered by veteran characters like Briere and Kimmo Timonen.

“It’s a decision they have to think about,” Giroux said. “It’s a big move, but at the same time it doesn’t really matter whether you have a “C” or an “A” or nothing on your jersey. If you lead by example or you’re comfortable enough to speak in a (locker) room, you don’t need a letter on your jersey to do that.”

Not much of an acceptance speech, but Giroux also isn’t about to act like Mike Richards did when he was a young star here reluctant to accept a captain’s mantle, only accepting when the choice became almost unavoidable.

Giroux may not sound like he’s lobbying for it, but his actions speak loudly that he’s ready for the challenge.

“It’s a big responsibility but it’s an honor at the same time,” Giroux said. “Even if I don’t have the (captain’s) letter, I’m still going to be the same player on or off the ice. It’s how you play and how the players in the room look at you.”

Giroux declares himself fully recovered from a neck injury suffered last month while playing for Eisbaren Berlin. He scored four goals and 19 points in just nine games there, melding well with teammate Briere, whose stay in Berlin ended with a wrist injury Dec. 28.

As for Giroux, he scored 28 goals and a career-high 93 points (third-best in the NHL) last season, forming an alliance with Jaromir Jagr, a player just 16 years his senior. While Giroux will miss having one of the league’s all-time stick artists by his side, he looks to be the centerpiece of what could be a great first line for the Flyers, with his roommate Brayden Schenn and the physical Scott Hartnell as his likely wingers.

“I’m just excited to come back,” Giroux said. “I had a good feeling we were going to have a season. It was just a matter of time.”

n n nHartnell showed up Tuesday sporting a huge tangle of beard. It struck a chord with film fan Ilya Bryzgalov.

“Oh, he look great with beard,” the Flyers’ celluloid goalie said. “He’s like (Tom Hanks’ character) from the movie “Castaway.” We need to buy some ball for him so that he gets a best buddy Wilson.”

n n nBriere said his left wrist injury was confirmed in Germany as a sprain, and while 2-3 weeks was an original prognosis for recovery, he’s thinking it may be another week or 10 days or so beyond that before he’s in shape to play. Briere has to wait until the CBA is finalized this weekend before scheduling an appointment for an evaluation with Flyers doctors. Only after getting cleared by then can he begin to practice.

“I really believe when I’m ready to play I won’t be too far behind,” Briere said. “I’ve had the chance to stay in shape, and having played real hockey (in Germany), competitive games for the past three months, that’s put me in hockey shape. So missing three or four weeks, I should be OK.”